The Little Things
by Luna Lovegood5
Summary: Five times Rose ends up in the Doctor's bed, and one time he ends up in hers. [Not smut, surprisingly enough]


**The Little Things**

**A/N:** This is the tenth of thirteen completely unconnected fics I'm planning to write throughout the course of series three, all of which will be Doctor/Rose centric simply because I miss them. 

_I._

"You've changed your room," Rose says in slight surprise, staring around at the space before her, taking in the softer colours and lighter air. She'd only popped in to ask how many sugars he has in his tea now (she keeps forgetting and adding two before realising that's not right), but she's stopped dead in her tracks by the massive difference in décor.

"Don't you like it?" the Doctor asks, looking up from his book, and there's something oddly intimate about that question.

"No, I…" Rose looks around again, more objectively now she's recovered from the initial bewilderment. She'd never really considered that he might go as far as changing his wallpaper (was his whole person not enough?), never even really thought it important before now. He blends in, somehow, in his brown suit with his brown book on his brown-and-cream bed, one eyebrow raised expectantly in her direction.

She joins him on the edge of the bed and smiles, all notions of tea forgotten as she pulls at a tiny thread in the cover. "I love it. It suits you." Her smile is returned with twice the vigour, and the book (which, she discovers later, is a well-disguised copy of _Harry Potter_) soon lies forgotten.

When she finally leaves at 3am after a night talking about everything and nothing from the French Revolution to how they need to stock up on Coco Pops, she's almost forgotten that the room used to be any other way. After all, what does a bit of wallpaper matter when what's beneath it is still there, will _always _be there? A newer, shinier coat of paint can't change what she feels, unreservedly and unconditionally, for the man underneath.

_II._

They're walking down the corridor on the way to their respective bedrooms in the middle of a heated debate about – of all things – God. Neither of them quite willing to let it go just yet, the Doctor continues his sentence as he walks through the arch to his room, Rose following without really thinking much further than the end of the counter-argument he's currently throwing her way.

Before she knows it, she's pointing at the Doctor's grandfather clock from her cross-legged position in the middle of his bed, using it to disprove the Epicurean hypothesis he's so fond of while he brushes his teeth in the adjoining bathroom. He administers the muffled threat of a visit to William Paley – "See if you're so keen on clocks once you've spent half a day with _him_," she just catches as he comes out and walks into the depths of his cavernous wardrobe.

Rose's insistence that there must be _some _further purpose to the world than, "right here, right now" is momentarily cut off when a large nightshirt flies out of said wardrobe and lands in her face. She pulls off her jeans and tugs the shirt over her head just as the Doctor emerges in stripy blue pyjamas she hasn't a spare thought to giggle over.

"David Hume didn't think so," the Doctor counters, positive that any order in the universe occurred entirely by chance and isn't even remotely indicative of some higher power. He's seen far too much evil to believe in the God those of classical theism are so desperate to cling to. However, despite himself, he admires their faith in the face of such adversity. "Now there _was _a funny man. You'd've liked Hume," he's saying, lying back on the bed with his hands linked behind his head as though this is an every day occurrence. She remains cross-legged in the middle. "Remind me to introduce you one day. He was Scottish. Very Scottish. _Drunk _and Scottish," the Doctor adds, removing a hand from behind his head to point at her in apparent meaning. "Best way to be. And," he laughs delightedly, "he thought the universe was a carrot. Can you believe it?"

Rose pauses in her shuffle up towards the top of the bed, frowning bemusedly. "Seriously? A _carrot_? What, like a big, orange carrot?"

"Yep." He pops the p. "A big, orange, put-it-in-your-Sunday-dinner, honest-to-God-if-you'll-forgive-the-pun carrot. Lovely. Like something out of _The Matrix_ – completely wrong, by the way – only weirder. And more orange."

"Obviously didn't listen to you, then," Rose points out, now leaning back against the headboard, "or else he'd've been saying the universe is one great big banana."

"Ah! Now there's a thought. When he said that the universe is an organic vegetable, _such as a carrot_, was he including fruit in that _such as_? Because really, it's rather discriminatory against apples and things if he wasn't. What if the universe wants to be a plum, hm? What happens then?" The Doctor pauses thoughtfully, his hand hovering over the switch to the lamp as he nudges her with his foot. "You should ask him that."

Rose smiles across at him, infected by his enthusiasm for life and talking and thinking and simply _being_. "D'you really reckon the universe could just be one big…_carrot_?" She has to fight not to laugh.

"Could be, could be," the Doctor responds jovially, in a tone that says he really doesn't care either way, so long as there are always wacky philosophers around to suggest such things.

The light goes out, and Rose grins into the darkness. "Well then. We'd just better hope there aren't any giant, hungry space rabbits out there, hadn't we?"

_III._

She goes to him in the console room, shaking but determined to hold it together, much more open about her nightmares since the incident with the Cynrog and the assurance that the Doctor won't think her weak for the occasional bad night after some of the things they see.

This has only ever happened once before – usually, she's able to go straight back to sleep, dismissing her thoughts as dreams and nothing more, isn't left with quite this much residual terror – but he knows exactly what to do.

One long hot chocolate later and the bright light of the TARDIS kitchen has chased away almost all of her demons. Rose sits opposite him, hands clasped around her cup for the residual warmth, hating the idea of him thinking of her as useless, as the child that everyone else seems to see fit to call her. She's beginning to drop back into a sleep she's petrified of re-entering. The memories of the dream are far too vivid, the actions of the Cybermen far too close to those of real life, the echo of waking up alone and trembling in a darkened room without a hand to hold imprinted far too readily upon her mind for her to return with ease.

"We all have nightmares, Rose," the Doctor informs her quietly, pulling her mug down and tilting her head up so he can look her in the eye. "Even me."

Then he walks around the table and holds her, knowing from the way she sinks into him that she's been desperate for him to do so all night. It feels silly to cry now, so she holds it in, however difficult that is fast becoming with each gentle movement of his hand across her back.

"Come on, to bed with you," the Doctor insists, attempting to get up, but she clutches blindly at his shirt and buries her head in him, clinging on as though for dear life. It's so rare to see her like this, so utterly helpless and afraid, that he truly cannot bring himself to leave her. However, they can't possibly stay like this all night, no matter how much Rose might want to, and so he picks her up and carries her to his bed (_his_ purely because it's the closest, he tells himself, even though their rooms are adjoining).

She wakes in the morning still clutching him, rather embarrassed to remember how she got there and even more so to discover him wide awake next to her.

"You stayed."

"Yes, I did," the Doctor confirms, pretending that he hasn't been watching her all night and going on to explain when she still looks vaguely surprised. "Haven't slept for a few days; thought I could do with it. You don't want to see me without sleep. I get grumpy and have little Time Lord-y strops. Little Time Lord-y strops that could quite possibly cause the implosion of half the universe. And – "

He is silenced when she leans forward and kisses his cheek, pulling back and smiling fondly at him. "Thank you."

She's seen right through him; that much is obvious.

"Anytime."

_IV._

There's nothing wrong this time. She simply can't sleep, and what else is she supposed to do but go to him? It's almost second nature now, not a hint of embarrassment crossing her mind as she peeps around the corner to check he's awake. This is somehow very different from waking up in his bed as a result of his caring and her weakness.

Rose pauses in the archway, watching him unseen from her vantage point with the slightest of smiles playing across her lips as he reads. _Quantum Consciousness and the Origins of the Universe. _It's rare to see him so calm and settled.

"Are you coming in, or would you rather become a permanent feature of that wall? I'm sure it could be arranged."

Alright, so she'd _thought _she was unseen.

Rose steps fully into the room and crosses it, scrambling onto the bed and flopping down at his side, all this a well-rehearsed habit by now. "Hello."

"Hello," the Doctor offers, looking up from his book for the first time as she wriggles a little further down the bed, seeing fit to steal most of the covers. He raises a fond, amused eyebrow. "Make yourself comfortable."

"I will, thanks."

The Doctor laughs. "I'm a bad influence on you, Rose Tyler," he decides, shifting a little closer to her nonetheless before he continues to read. "Couldn't sleep?" he asks, eyes flickering at an unnatural speed across the lines. He turns the page before she's managed to read five words, propping herself up on her elbow and leaning on her side to get a better view of the text.

"Mm."

No more questions need to be asked. Whether it's restlessness, simple insomnia or even terrified reflections on the day they've had, she doesn't really need a reason to be in here. Not anymore. Besides, it's not really the kind of thing they talk about. He'll hold her as she cries, certainly, lie with her to ward away the nightmares, but all speech relating to such memories is brushed firmly under the carpet every time.

"Good book?" He's going far too fast for her to ever get an impression of it herself, so she removes the support of her elbow and flops back down onto her side, playing absent-mindedly with the hem on the few centimetres of cover between them.

"So-so. Not really your thing," the Doctor says, wrinkling his nose, and she's left wondering if it's _Harry Potter _again. "Quite advanced theory for the time it was written, mind. Well, I say quite advanced. I just mean I'm not rolling my eyes more than four times a minute."

"What's it about?" Rose asks, an edge of heaviness creeping into her voice. Something about this room and bed always does make her wonderfully sleepy, no matter how difficult she's found it to drift off beforehand. "What's…" She eyeballs the title. "_Quantum consciousness _when it's at home?"

"Oh, just the basic idea that you've got to practically have a degree in quantum theory to even begin to understand the brain. All a bit pompous really. All you need is a needle and a good magnet. Mind, your lot won't figure that out until the 32nd century, so…"

Rose throws an arm over her face and burrows into the pillow, defiantly sleepy. "And what's that got to do with the origins of the universe?"

"Not a lot. Never thought there was enough of a link to write a book about it, which is the only reason I'm reading. Found it in the library behind that file on the proper care of cacti. Besides, I've been to a lecture by the fella who wrote it – this, you understand," he clarifies, waving the book in her direction, "not the cacti file – and it wasn't half interesting. Mind, he _was_ talking about Burmese pancakes then, but the point still stands. I think. Tell you what, though, the students weren't half bored. I caught four of them asleep on the front row alone. I'd call them rude, but I was snoring away on the second as soon as he moved onto the philosophical debate behind the manufacture of hair."

Rose gives a muffled laugh, her eyes now shut against the light. The Doctor reaches over her to dim the lamp on the beside cabinet and she visibly relaxes, despite his movements, as the bulb fades.

"I could read it to you, if you like," he tests, grinning when there's no reply. Tucking the covers tighter around her, he wonders if she really did had trouble sleeping or if she'd just wanted an excuse to steal half of his bed, and eventually comes to the conclusion that he can't say he minds either way now that she's here. He hovers over her uncertainly for a moment before leaning down and kissing her forehead with as much haste and little pressure as he can manage.

"Sleep tight. Don't let the bed bugs bite," he tells her, quite seriously, and goes back to his book, oddly glad of the company and the second breathing rhythm whispering through the room.

The Doctor thinks that perhaps this wasn't such a good idea when he laughs so hard at a certain theory on the creation of the universe that he falls right off the bed, swiftly followed by a sound whack from an indignant Rose's pillow.

_V._

"Ro_-ose_?"

She's just walking past the open archway to his room on her way to her own for some more comfortable shoes when a piteous call whimpers out from the space within.

Rose pokes her head around the corner to find the Doctor in an adorably ruffled mess: hair sticking up in all directions as though he's resorted to electric shock therapy in his frustration; shirt-tails hanging out and his toes visibly wiggling through the hole in his sock, second shoe nowhere to be seen. He's currently pulling at his bow tie, positively pouting as a result of his many failed attempts to do it up correctly. Rose bites her lip and tries her best not to laugh.

"Could you…?" The Doctor gestures uselessly at the tie, a pleading note to his voice. "It keeps getting away from me."

She walks gladly over and begins her own assault upon his collar, tying it neatly in one successful attempt.

"Oh, now that's not fair," the Doctor says, going cross-eyed as he peers down at it before realising he can just as easily inspect her handiwork in the mirror before him. "It's much harder to do it on yourself," he assures her, choosing to ignore her laughter.

"I don't know," she tuts, mock-serious now she's managed to contain her giggles, tugging slightly on the bow tie before leaning back and attempting to smooth his hair down a little. "What am I going to do with you? Last of the Time Lords, defeated by formal dinner wear."

He catches her hands as she brushes off his shoulders, protesting indignantly. "I told you. Much harder to do the things up on yourself." The Doctor scowls at the bow tie in the mirror. "It's a conspiracy, I'm sure."

Rose wiggles her fingers within his and makes her eyes go wide. "Ooh. Conspiracy of the dinner jackets. Bringin' the good-food-lovers of Britain down with bow ties and cufflinks."

"Now you're just being silly," he tells her, dropping her hands to fiddle with the perfect bow tie, and she can't help but grin as he continues to stress the utter impossibility of the task she just completed for him.

"Well then, you just achieved your impossible thing for the day," Rose smiles, standing back to survey him.

The Doctor's fingers pause over the knot, suddenly incredibly aware of her watching him. "What?"

She grins. "Nothing. You'll do nicely." She holds her arm out, and he slips his through the gap, escorting her out of the room as though he's been thoroughly composed and in control all this time.

"Dame Rose," he offers, stepping back to allow her to go first as they reach the main doors, a whole new world full of sparkling potential, clothing conspiracies and ridiculously extravagant food laid out before them.

Rose raises her eyebrows at him. "Sir Doctor," she retorts, giggling, and abandons his arm in favour of his hand.

"Reckon we can get that changed to Dame Rose of TARDIS?" he asks, free hand pausing on the door handle. "Not that old Vicky would be particularly pleased to see us, but it suits you much better." He moves his hand from door handle to bow tie, tugging it ever-so-slightly out of place. "Don't you think?"

His companion reaches up and straightens it again. "Yeah," she agrees, softly. "Yeah, I do."

--

He's never sought her out before. Not like this.

Oh, he's sat on her bed and watched her dress or curl her hair, he's gone to her for a chat at 3am, held her through her nightmares, even stood in her doorway and listened to her breathe after a particularly dangerous escapade.

But this? This is different. For once, he's not afraid to admit that it's him who needs her. That _she_ is the one in this funny little set-up they have who keeps everything together, keeps him from crumbling and grieving for the blood of a thousand lives.

Just this once, he has neither the strength nor the will to keep denying that, not after all they've seen in the past day. He has to see her, hear her voice, feel her heartbeat and know that she's not still carrying the guilt with which she went to bed. He thinks it will be a long time before she lets go the sense of responsibility she currently feels for Toby's death on that rocket. As for himself, he's having trouble believing that she's truly safe.

It was close today. Too close.

Not looking where he's going and traversing the hallways through instinct alone, the Doctor bumps straight into Rose in her doorway, steadying her unnecessarily with his hands at her waist as she recoils backwards from the impact.

"Oh! I was coming to find you," she explains, all wrapped up like some sort of particularly pink and girly Christmas present in fluffy slippers and a dressing gown. "Couldn't sleep," she smiles sheepishly, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

"No," the Doctor agrees, before thinking about this. "Not that I've been trying, exactly," he adds, "but I daresay I'd've had trouble if I had been. It's been quite a day."

Choosing to ignore that last little statement, Rose half-rolls her eyes as he simply stands back and observes her for a second or two, unblinking. Then, his hands move from her waist to around her back and she's pulled into a hug, ribs protesting against the sudden pressure. He can't help but grin as she takes his impromptu actions completely in her stride, awkwardly extracting her arms from their crushed position between them to wrap around his back and resting her head on his shoulder with a small sigh. Without as much as a word, it becomes incredibly clear to both of them that somehow, as a result of the hours they spent stuck on Krop Tor, they need each other's comfort more than ever before.

"Random 4am hugging," he mumbles into her hair, quite unwilling to let go. "New policy."

"I could get used to that," Rose says, knowing that for once she has to be the one to pull away. She takes him by the hand and pulls him back towards her bed, kicking her slippers off in the process.

She gives a resigned smile and tilts her head to the side, inviting him onto the bed and wrapping her arms around him when he sits down, as desperate for the cooling touch of his skin as he is for the warmth of hers. "You alright?" she asks, well aware of the pointless nature of such a question, unable to care now that he's here with her. She has been replaying the events of the day into the lonely darkness of her room for far too long.

Instead of his standard, _I'm always alright_, however, the Doctor's only response is a long sigh through his nose as he moves away to lie down, idly noting that he's never shared this bed with her before. _Let me stay? _dances across the tip of his tongue, but it doesn't need to be asked. He knows she won't protest.

In fact, she's taking the opportunity to lie down with him, head on his chest and hand over his left heart, drumming out a light rhythm with her fingertips that causes his eyebrows to raise.

"You're OK with this?" he asks. Rose is quiet, as though this is normal and natural, trusting him, comforting him. He freezes in the process of putting his arms around her when she reaches up and kisses his jaw before snuggling back down.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

The Doctor swallows, allowing himself – just this once – to truly bask in the glorious, beautiful relief of having her back with him after it could all have gone so very wrong.

"Talk to me," he requests, suddenly, needing to hear her voice.

"'Bout what?" Rose enquires sleepily, the rhythm she's tapping out slowing as she tires, far less apprehensive about the dreams awaiting her while he is here to wake up to.

"I don't know. Anything. Nothing. Your childhood," the Doctor clarifies after her continued silence. "What you did before you met me."

"You know it all already," comes the muffled reply. "You should've picked an older woman to travel with; they'd have more to tell," she teases.

The TARDIS dims the lights, leaving nothing but a soft green glow to permeate the room. "Tell me again."

"Tell me about _your _childhood," she retorts, eyes firmly shut against the remaining light, knowing full well that he wants the comfort but unwilling to let him slip into the melancholy thoughts she knows will surely occur if she talks for too long and allows his mind to drift.

This leaves him slightly baffled. "But you've heard it all before." Besides, he knows its her voice he wants to fill the room, not his own. "Just talk to me, Rose. About anything," he says, voice betraying the false casualness of the request as the words of the Beast echo through his head. _You will die, and I will live. _"What you had for breakfast. Colour of your socks. Where you left your shoes before you went to bed."

"You made breakfast, so you know. My shoes are by the door. And 'm not wearing any socks," Rose mumbles, poking his leg with her toes to demonstrate, and the Doctor laughs.

"Alright. Good start." His grip tightens over her in the ensuing silence as though he's scared that, in the absence of speech, she'll slip away from him the second he lets go. _The valiant child who will die in battle so very soon…_

Oh, it would be so easy to lie here for the rest of time and pretend that they never have to face the world again, never have to put themselves at risk of the inevitable. Never before has he wanted to believe in her promises of forever quite so much.

"Go on, then. What do you wanna know?" Rose asks, rolling away and propping herself up on her elbow opposite him in an effort to shake herself awake. The Doctor's presence alone is enough for her to believe that everything will be fine, but he evidently requires something more. A few words until he falls asleep (she knows for a fact that he's barely closed his eyes for eight days) isn't a lot to ask, not after all he's done for her.

He turns and looks at her silently. "Everything."

Rose laughs. "I reckon you're pretty much there, don't you? Not much _I_ could tell you that you haven't already heard."

"Everything about _you_," the Doctor clarifies, and she can't help but blush, cheeks staining the same colour as the quilt.

"You know that, too," she says softly.

It's pointless talk, but it's talk nonetheless. She'd never quite realised the extent to which he distracts himself with babble before.

"What did you want to be while you were growing up?" the Doctor asks, and Rose pretends he doesn't already know.

"I wanted to get a job in a shop so I could be attacked by shop window dummies and get rescued by a man who can change his face and who lives in a house that's much bigger on the inside."

He grins. "You got lucky."

"Yeah. I did." And something about the soft simplicity with which she admits that makes him ache.

The Doctor coughs, shifting awkwardly as though physical movement can reduce some of the intensity of her words. "What did you _really_ want to be?"

"Told you. Space/time traveller. It'd look great on my CV."

"Imagine that. _Yeah, I was partly responsible for blowing up my last job – _" He pauses here to wince as Rose whacks him in the arm; "That was _your _fault!" " – _But would you look at that! I've been to Mars!_"

"You've never taken me to Mars," she points out, nudging him, and he wrinkles his nose.

"Nah," the Doctor waves this off, dismissing the idea. "Nothing worth seeing. No-one lives there until the 72nd century and even then they're boring as anything. They all work in banks."

"Thought I was gonna do that for a while," Rose admits, "after I realised I was rubbish at Science and no-one in their right mind would want me as a nurse."

"Well, thank goodness for that. I would never have met you if you'd been off at some fancy medical school. Couldn't have that, could we?" The Doctor's tone is jovial, but he's rather startled by the sudden realisation that he really _can't _see life without her now. "And can you imagine the jokes? _Hello, I'm the Doctor and this is Nurse Tyler! _People would think we were role-playing our way across the universe."

Rose thinks back to the psychic paper, to Sir Doctor and Dame Rose. "Isn't that sort of what we do anyway?" she asks, lifting up the covers so she can lie under them.

He grins. "Yes, I suppose it is, Mrs Smith," he agrees, and waggles his eyebrows.

Rose is silent for a minute, chewing her lip, then asks: "Do you really think we'd never have met if I hadn't been working at Henrik's?" It's obviously a question that bothers her greatly: she's frowning, not quite meeting his eye but clearly watching him very closely for an answer.

"I don't know, Rose," the Doctor says truthfully after a minute, despite knowing full well it's not the answer she wants to hear. "It's that age-old question, isn't it? Fate or choice. Free will or pre-determined destiny."

She'd always thought she believed in fate, but since meeting the Doctor she can't quite decide whether that belief has strengthened or diminished. What she is certain of, however, is that she can no longer even begin to process the idea of a life without him, without such purpose and feeling tied up in another being. He's so much a part of her now that he's almost intrinsic, and she can't bring herself to believe that she'll ever truly be without him.

Noticing the sudden defiance in her, the Doctor can't help but smile. "You believe it."

"Don't you?" Rose challenges, looking at him across the pillows as they lie face-to-face. "Don't you reckon that somehow, wherever my life had taken me, we'd've ended up together?"

"I'd like to," he says, despite his utter rejection of the idea that some higher being may possibly be guiding their every move. All his other beliefs have been challenged in the last few hours; why not this one, too?

Knowing that he has nine hundred years of scepticism to push aside before he can admit such a thing, Rose grins and shuffles over to him again, settling back down in his arms. "Good enough for me."


End file.
